


over & over

by happilyy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Derek "Nursey" Nurse is Unchill, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Silly Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 19:09:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8459581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happilyy/pseuds/happilyy
Summary: Derek continued smirking. “So, Dex,” he began, Dex’s expression changing to skeptical as he crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “You seemed pretty worried about me…”Dex rolled his eyes and evaded the question by posing his own. “Was it worth it, Nurse?”Derek just laughed.“Do it for the vine.”-Or: Five times Bitty acted as Nursey's emergency contact and one time Dex did.





	

**Author's Note:**

> the working title of this was "derek nurse is an idiot" which should tell you how dumb some of these situations are lol
> 
> this silly little fic is inspired by kaleidoscopeparson's text post (http://kaleidoscopeparson.tumblr.com/post/152467419220/)! they also wrote their own fic based on the post so you should go read that too!
> 
> despite being a pre-nursing student i do not think some of the medical situations in this are accurate. forgive me.
> 
> thank you to define-lying on tumblr for letting me use a part of their text post in this! and to everyone who gave me stupid situations nursey would end up in, thank you too!!
> 
> also: emergency contact is used loosely, in some of these bitty is just the one that comes to help nursey lmao
> 
> this is not betaed so all mistakes are mine! enjoy!

**_I._ **

“Dammit, Nursey!”

Derek groaned at the sound of the voice from a short distance away. If Derek knew Bitty even the slightest bit, he was in for a scolding.

Derek turned his head, leaves still fluttering to the ground above him, and found Bitty rushing towards him. He had gathered a small crowd of people during his disoriented moaning, most of them clutching their phones in concern.

The junior came to a halt, leaning over Derek. Even upside down, his face held a stern but worried expression as Derek continued to stare up at the orange and red leaves canopying the sky.

“Nursey,” Bitty began, his hands firm on his hips. “What in the _hell_ happened?”

Honestly, all Derek had wanted was to be able to sit up in the tree, away from the groups of students sitting by the lake. In hindsight, he should have remembered that he wasn’t five years old anymore, and had become incredibly clumsy.

Derek explained the situation to Bitty as the small crowd dispersed. Bitty’s face morphed from incredulous, to reprimanding, and finally settled on worried. Derek still had yet to stand up, and he didn’t feel confident in his ability to stay upright for long.

After a few long moments, he took a deep breath before beginning to push off the ground with his hands.

Only, a sharp shooting pain in his right wrist left him gasping, Bitty reaching out in alarm.

“I think,” Derek panted, the pain coming into sharp focus. “I need to go to the health center.”

-

A few hours, five lectures from Bitty, and one wrist splint later, Derek trudged through the door of the Haus with Bitty hot on his heels.

He was immediately greeted with the sight of Dex and Chowder studying at the kitchen table.

“Nursey!” Chowder shouted, his face falling at an alarming speed when he caught sight of the wrist splint. The commotion caught Dex’s attention and a few seconds later, Derek was awarded with a glare from his fellow d-man.

“What the fuck, Nurse?” If Dex’s glares could kill, Derek would be dead five times over by now. “What did you do this time?”

If Derek was being honest, he didn’t feel like explaining that he had just wanted to climb a tree when he knew he was going to get shit from Poindexter about it. So, he just shrugged and pretended to ignore the glare that was being aimed his way.

“Chill out, Dex. I’m fine.”

Those were definitely not the correct words, because they resulted in Dex huffing and collecting his work before storming out of the Haus.

Derek glared after the red head, trying to keep the disappointment off of his face. He couldn't ever do anything right when it came to Dex, and frankly, it was starting to wear on Derek’s nerves. Was it too much to ask just to get along with the other boy?

“What’s his problem?” he questioned, glancing towards Chowder and Bitty.

Bitty shrugged as he pulled out ingredients to make cookies. “I think he’s just worried about you, Nursey.”

Derek scoffed as he took a seat at the table.

The idea that Dex was worried about Nursey was implausible. Dex hated Nursey’s guts, and it was probably going to be like that for the rest of their college careers.

“Yeah, well, he’s got a weird way of showing it.”

* * *

**_II._ **

The first thing he was aware of was somebody flashing a light in his eyes and then yelling over their shoulder.

As he slowly became aware of his surroundings, he could hear the person hovering over him speaking into a phone.

“Eric Bittle? Yes, we’re calling because you were listed as one of Derek’s emergency contacts-”

He groaned as soon as the words made sense. He didn’t intend for _this_ to happen. Oh god, Bitty’s was going to chew him out in front of everyone.

“Derek? Are you awake?”

Derek peeled his eyes open to find an EMT looking at him, her eyebrows furrowed in concern. He moaned again and tried to bat her away, but she was obviously trained for such situations and waved his hands off easily.  

“Hi Derek. I’m going to be taking you to the hospital. Everything’s okay, we just want to check for a concussion.”

If Derek was more coherent at that moment he would have protested the course of action. But, he could barely think straight, and all he wanted was some pain medicine.

He was probably going to be banned from ever stepping foot in Annie’s again.

-

A concussion. Fucking _great_.

Nursey resisted the urge to bury his head in the stiff hospital pillow and hide from the glares that Bitty continued to send him from the chair. They had set Derek up in one of the ER beds, and not even ten minutes after arriving, Bitty had stormed the entrance demanding to see “his idiot teammate.”

Shortly thereafter, the doctor had come by to asses him and had confirmed what Derek had feared: he had a minor concussion from the fall after his collision with the Annie’s sign, and would have to sit out from hockey for about three weeks.

“I just cannot fathom what possessed you to even pull such a stunt, Nursey,” Bitty waved his hands around in exasperation as Derek picked at a loose thread on his jeans. Despite his reprimanding bearing a strong resemblance to the scolding his mothers often gave him when a particular bout of clumsiness occurred in his childhood, Derek knew that Bitty only did it out of concern and not actual contempt.

Derek sighed and glanced toward the ceiling. “I told you, Bitty. I did it for-”

His answer was cut off as somebody ran into the room, the curtain obscuring the bed from the rest of the emergency room fluttering in their wake.

It was Dex.

Dex, who up until that very moment, Derek had never seen look so frantic.

His face was red and his hair windswept, as if he had just ran across town to get to the hospital, and he was wringing his hands nervously.

He glanced towards Derek to find him conscious and sitting on the edge of the bed before his expression dissolved into frustration.

“Dude, what the hell?” Derek questioned in disbelief, and, what? What was Dex even doing at the hospital?

Dex threw his hands in the air. “Bitty called me! Bits, you made it sound like he was dying! I thought something seriously wrong had-” he cut himself off before he could finish the sentence.

Dex was _blushing_.

William Poindexter was blushing after yelling about Derek being hurt, and this was officially the weirdest situation that Derek had ever found himself in.

There was a moment of silence before Dex crossed his arms and sat in the empty space on the hospital bed next to Derek.

Derek smirked. Dex and Derek’s relationship had slowly began to improve over the last few months, resulting in them having something that sort of resembled friendship. Friendship with a lot of bickering. Derek didn't think he should have been so happy and relieved to be somebody’s friend, but that was a thought he pushed as far as he could to the back of his mind for another day.

Bitty was oddly quiet from the corner of the room, his face buried in his phone as he frantically typed away.

Derek continued smirking. “So, Dex,” he began, Dex’s expression changing to skeptical as he crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “You seemed pretty worried about me…”

Dex rolled his eyes and evaded the question by posing his own. “Was it worth it, Nurse?”

Derek just laughed.

“Do it for the vine.”

* * *

 

**_III._ **

Derek was drunk. Derek was _very_ drunk.

He had no clue where Bitty had run off to. It was supposed to be his turn for Nursey Patrol that night, but as soon as Beyoncé had started playing, Derek had lost him in the crowd.

Derek blearily turned at the sound of Ransom and Holster screaming at Tango as he attempted his first keg stand, and vaguely wondered where Dex had gone. He was doing that a lot lately. Thinking about Dex.

The night continued much the same, Derek stumbling around, flitting from group to group, and continuing to become more inebriated as the kegster went on.

Eventually, he decided that he needed to sleep, but there was no way he was going to be able to make it back to the dorms alone. Chowder wouldn’t mind if he crashed in his room. He briefly considered calling Bitty for help up the stairs before dismissing the idea. He was probably too busy drunk baking.

In hindsight, he should have called Bitty.

He barely made it past the fourth stair before he tripped, his hands coming up to prevent his face from crashing into the stairs.

The same could not be said for his ankle.

The dull throbbing that started up almost immediately told him that there was no way he was going to be able to move without help. God, Ransom and Holster were going to kill him if he spent more time out of practice.

“Bitty!” he called out, his voice echoing off the walls of the Haus. The kegster was pretty much over, the last few stragglers stumbling towards the door, so he knew that the junior would hear him.

Sure enough, Bitty rounded the corner a few minutes later, his hair mussed and sprinkled with flour. His cheeks were flushed red. Derek was pretty sure he wasn’t all that sober himself, and hoped that he would be able to help him to bed without injuring himself.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Bitty muttered as he slowly made his way up the stairs. “What happened now?”

Derek explained the situation as Bitty slowly helped him to Chowder’s room.

“Well, the least I can do for you is make breakfast in the morning since I was supposed to be on Nursey Patrol,” Bitty reasoned with himself. Derek hummed in agreement, already on the verge of falling asleep, the dull throbbing of his ankle fading.

“Maybe Dex can help,” Derek muttered as his head hit the pillow.

The last thought that Derek had before drifting off was about waking up to Dex bringing him breakfast in bed.

-

“Nursey, come on. Wake up.”

Derek startled awake at the soft voice. It took him a few minutes of rubbing his eyes for his awareness to creep in.

He gazed around the room for a moment before the night before came rushing back, as did the pain in his ankle tenfold.

He moaned at the pain, burying his head back into the pillow that smelled like Chowder. He didn’t know where the goalie had slept that night, but he found he couldn’t put much thought into it when he felt like was dying.

“Dude, here.”

He looked up to find Dex crouching at the side of the bed, his eyes oddly full of concern. He held an ankle brace and a bottle of aspirin in one hand, the other holding out an unopened water bottle.

“Did I die? Am I dreaming right now? There’s no way you’re Dex, you’re totally an angel,” he muttered, downing two pills before grabbing for the brace. The sunlight streaming in through the windows worsened Derek’s headache, but he couldn’t hate it all that much when it framed Dex like a halo, his freckles more stark against his pale skin. He really did look like an angel.

Dex laughed, standing back up. “Bitty told me what happened last night. Thought you’d appreciate the brace. I still had it from last year when I twisted my ankle.”

Derek was touched. Usually, Dex just made fun of him for getting blackout drunk, teasing him about his lack of ability to hold his liquor. This behavior was new, and Derek kind of really liked it.

“Thanks, Poindexter.”

Dex looked embarrassed at the lack of chirping coming from Nursey as he ran a hand through his hair, glancing back towards the bedroom door.

“Well, Bitty made you breakfast. It’s downstairs whenever you’re ready,” he said before quickly making an exit, leaving Derek with his thoughts.

And Derek knew he was fucked when all he could think about was pulling Dex into the bed with him and napping for the rest of the day.

* * *

 

**_IV._ **

Derek thought he would never be in a weirder situation than sitting in the ER with Bitty and Dex.

He was wrong. _This_ was definitely the weirdest.

Jack Zimmermann stood in the Haus kitchen covered in flower and attempting to bake something for Bitty. And he had asked Derek to help.

God help them both.

They had been trying to bake Bitty’s favorite cookies. For somebody that constantly had pies appearing wherever he went, Bitty didn’t particularly enjoy pie as much as he raved about his MooMaw’s chocolate chip cookies. And Jack wanted to recreate them to surprise Bitty.

Nursey found it adorable. Ever since Bitty and Jack had told them about their relationship, Jack had been coming to visit the Haus more often. Bitty tried to act like he didn’t love it, but he wasn’t fooling any of them.

Which brought him to their current situation.

Derek’s hand was stuck in a jar.

“What happened?” Jack asked incredulously.

Derek shrugged in bewilderment. “Dude, I don’t even know!”

The obvious solution was to call Bitty, since Bitty seemed to have gotten Derek out of every bad situation he had been in during the past two years. But he had to do it without letting him know that Jack was here to surprise him. Great.

The phone only rang twice before Bitty picked up. “What mess have you gotten yourself into this time, Nursey?”

Derek hesitated. “Uh, my hand is stuck in a jar?”

The other end of the line was silent for a moment before he could hear Bitty sigh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Derek looked towards Jack and smiled sheepishly. “I”m sorry?”

“Do you need me to come back to the Haus right this second?”

Derek grew frantic at that. As much as he would like Bitty’s help, he didn’t want to ruin Jack’s surprise. “No, no, no! It’s chill, I’ll just call Dex or something! Bye Bitty!”

He disconnected the call, cutting off Bitty’s questions. After stuffing the phone back into his pocket, he looked up to find Dex standing in the kitchen doorway, staring at his hand stuck in the jar.

“Seriously?”

It said something about Derek’s clumsiness that Dex wasn’t even surprised anymore, much less chirping the hell out of him. Derek shrugged sheepishly.

Dex rolled his eyes. “I’ll get the oil.”

Jack laughed as Derek preened. “Thanks, man.” _I love you, you’re the best_ he tacked on in his head. Now was definitely not the time for Derek to spill his feelings everywhere.

* * *

 

**_V._ **

This was it. Derek was finally going to do it.

He was going to get his act together and tell Dex how he felt.

Derek steeled himself in front of the Haus basement door, knowing that Dex was downstairs fixing the washing machine for the thousandth time.

The basement may not have been the most romantic setting to confess his feelings, and the writer in Derek was protesting the idea vehemently, but he couldn't wait any longer. Every day he spent hanging out with Dex unable to touch him or do anything in fear that he didn’t feel the same was agony.

Derek wasn’t sure if Dex felt the same or not, but he needed to get this over with so he’d stop writing longing poems about red hair and freckles. He had already filled a whole journal, and frankly, it was getting kind of ridiculous.

He gripped the railing as he quietly inched his way down the stairs, his heart already racing to a staccato beat in his chest.

Dex was completely immersed in his work, his hands buried in the back of the washer. Derek could see the sweat glistening off the back of his neck and his breath caught in his throat for a moment.

Which was why he wasn’t watching where his foot landed as he stepped off the bottom stair.

“ _FUCK!_ ”

Dex whirled around, his screw driver held out like a weapon. “Nursey?” he questioned, standing up and rushing over to where Derek was hopping on one foot, tears springing to his eyes.

“I think I just stepped on a nail,” Derek grimaced. Surprisingly, the embarrassment overrode the pain.

Well, there went his plan.

There he was, ready to confess his feelings to Dex, and he stepped on a fucking _nail_. Dex probably thought he was an idiot. That thought overwhelmed everything else and he found himself wanting to bolt out of the basement and away from Dex and the horribly embarrassing moment.

“Derek, are you okay? We should go to the student health center,” Dex’s voice was surprisingly frantic. Derek didn’t have time to react to Dex using his name for the first time. He reached out towards Nursey, hesitating when he didn’t know what to do. “Or should we go to the ER? Was there rust on the nail? Maybe you need a tetanus shot-”

The embarrassment was almost overwhelming at that point. “Stop!” Derek shouted. Dex jumped, realizing he was rambling. “Stop, please. I’ll just have Bitty take me.”

Derek began struggling back up the stairs, aware that he was trailing blood as he went.

“Nursey, are you serious? I”m right here, I’ll just take you!”

Derek sighed at Dex’s incredulous tone. “Chill, Poindexter. I want Bitty to take me.”

Derek turned around before he could see Dex’s expression fall as he bit out a reply. “Fine.”

When he eventually had Bitty take him to have his foot checked out, he didn’t mention what had happened with Dex, and Bitty could tell it wasn't the time to ask.

* * *

 

**_+1_ **

It had been a week since the basement incident and Derek was avoiding Dex.

It’s not that he didn’t want to talk to Dex. He wanted so badly to just explain his reaction from the other night, but he was still thoroughly embarrassed.

Dex had also taken to avoiding him.

Bitty thought it was immature, but Derek just brushed his comments off and continued to feel miserable as he avoided the one person he never wanted to let go of.

“Derek?”

He raised his head and glanced towards the people sitting around the table at the library. Because of his avoidance of Dex, he had started to visit the Haus less often. Since he had nothing else to do but go to class and do his homework, he ended up going to one of the many literature study groups that he had continuously been invited to.

The girl next to him was holding out a tupperware of cookies. “Want one?”

Derek nodded without thought and took one, biting into it. He had a fleeting thought about how he often didn’t eat baked goods that weren’t made by Bitty before the feeling began.

He quickly spat out the bite on the table before he started coughing. The other members of their group looked alarmed as Derek began frantically searching through his backpack.

“What was in those cookies?” he questioned desperately as he felt the tell tale symptoms of his throat beginning to close.

The girl looked terrified. “Uh, chocolate chips, eggs, flour, sugar-”

Derek cursed as his backpack came up empty. “Were there nuts?” The girl's eyes widened as she nodded frantically.

He suddenly remembered why he didn't often eat baked goods that weren't Bitty's doing. Bitty knew all about his peanut allergy, and Derek often forgot to even be cautious, since Bitty remembered.

“Fuck!” Derek cursed. His throat continued to close up and his head was spinning, the dizziness making it hard to focus. “You need to call an ambulance,” he wheezed out. “I can’t find my epipen.”

Those words sent the group into action, everyone whipping out their phones and generally trying not to panic.

The last thing that Derek saw before he blacked out was someone grabbing his phone from his hand.

-

The first thing that Derek was aware of was the beeping. A few moments later and other sounds started to trickle in, until he could heard somebody close by whispering.

He moaned before slowly peeling his eyes open and coming face to face with Dex.

Dex’s face crumbled in relief.  It was only when Dex brought his hand towards his lips that Derek realized the other boy’s fingers were intertwined with his.

“Derek,” Dex breathed out, his voice soft and low. “You’re okay.”

He spoke quietly, like he was afraid that anything too loud would hurt Derek. He’d never seen Dex that vulnerable or relieved. Derek felt the air leave him momentarily at the emotion that clogged up his throat.

“Dex?” his voice was rough, evidence of how long he was out for.

“Why didn’t you have your damn epipen with you?” Dex questioned him. The words weren’t harsh, and Derek assumed that he wasn’t mad, just upset with what happened.

Derek groaned as the events from that afternoon came to the forefront of his mind.

“I cleaned my bag out yesterday and forgot to put it back,” Derek said slowly. Dex chuckled softly before he brought Derek’s hand back to his mouth for a soft kiss.

Derek went speechless. He could clearly remember the week of avoidance, so why was Dex sitting at his bedside in the hospital?

“Dex…” he trailed off as he attempted to pull his hand out of the other boy’s grip.

Dex turned fierce and determined eyes on him before he gripped his hand tighter, scooting the hospital chair closer to Derek’s bed.

“Derek I was so… scared,” Dex began, his thumb rubbing comforting circles into Derek’s hand. “I was at the Haus when I got the call from your study group. They told me they were taking you to the hospital because you were having a severe allergic reaction. The boys tried to calm me down, but I just dropped everything and drove here.”

Dex took a deep breath before beginning. “I just kept thinking: what if something seriously went wrong and I never told you?”

Derek felt like all the air had left the room. “Told me what?”

Dex laughed self deprecatingly before locking his gaze on their intertwined hands, refusing to meet Derek’s eyes. “Derek, you have to know that I love you.”

As soon as Derek heard those three words, all the other sounds in the room faded out. It wasn’t like any of the trashy romance novels that he had read in middle school. It wasn’t like the overly emotional poetry he had written about. And it most definitely wasn’t in the darkness of the Haus basement.

It was in the hospital emergency room and to Derek, it was perfect.

Which was exactly why returning the sentiment wasn’t the first thing that came out of his mouth.

“I was going to tell you,” he blurted out.

Dex looked shocked and then his face promptly fell. Derek scrambled to explain himself before the boy got the wrong idea. “Last week! In the basement, I was going to tell you that I love you,” Derek rushed out, desperately needing Dex to understand what he was saying. “But I stepped on the nail and then I was too embarrassed.”

There was a moment of silence before Dex promptly broke out into raucous laughter. “Derek Nurse, you are completely unchill.”

Derek felt too happy in that moment too think of a come back.

“Wait,” Dex began. “Why was I the one that your group called?”

Derek laughed at the question. “I changed Bitty’s emergency contact to you after what happened in the basement.”

Dex smiled before gesturing for Derek to move over in the bed. Derek scrambled to make room for the other boy, and sighed happily when he slipped a hand around his waist.

They sat together quietly for a few moments, Derek in awe at the fact that he got to have this, he got to love this beautiful and ridiculous boy and have him love Derek right back.

“I guess I’ll have to get used to it.”

Derek was confused. “Hm?”

Dex chuckled before burying his face in Derek’s curls. “Well, you and your clumsy ass are bound to get into more trouble.”

“Hey, Poindexter? _Chill.”_

Dex smiled as he leaned forward, touching his forehead to Derek. “Shut up, Nursey.”

Taking the statement to heart, Derek leaned forward and pressed his lips to the other boy’s. Dex hummed as he slipped his hands into Derek’s hair, his mouth opening to Derek’s tongue.

They kissed quietly for a few moments before breaking apart, their panting breaths the only sound  in the space between them.

“Only we would get together in a fucking hospital bed.”

Both of them dissolved into giggles before Dex pulled Derek back in for another kiss.

That was how the rest of the SMH found them a half an hour later.

Derek had happily told Bitty that he was never so happy to have him not come to his rescue for once.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: you can program contacts to show up as emergency contacts on the screen of your iphone! i imagine bitty doing this for everyone that lives in the haus
> 
> comments and kudos are much appreciated!
> 
> i am going to be participating in swawesome santa this year, so that's when my next omgcp work should be up! stay tuned!
> 
> you can follow me on tumblr at livhtwoods


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